The ACRU Blog

My colleague Eric Langborgh notes in his piece below that the ACLU has taken umbrage at the offer by a private person to give Bibles to high school students, apparently during the school day. Eric quotes ACLU attorney Yale Freeman as saying, "There is a time to speak you[r] religious beliefs and that is in your church." Eric believes Mr. Freeman's words give away the otherwise "unspoken policy of the ACLU to push all religious expression safely inside the walls of church buildings."

To illustrate that the ACRU practices the free speech it preaches, I respectfully dissent. As has been widely broadcast, the "flying imams" have demanded that prayer rooms be set aside for them in publicly-funded airports, and the Muslim Student Association in Minneapolis has sought, it would seem successfully, to have taxpayer money spent on basins to be used at the local community college for the Islamic religious ritual of foot washing. If the ACLU has raised any objection to these things -- much less threatened a lawsut -- I haven't seen it.

Accordingly, it may not be the case that the ACLU seeks to push ALL religious expression safely inside the walls of the church. Evidently, some religious expression, namely Islamic, need not be pushed inside the walls of the mosque. Airports and public colleges are, in that instance, OK.

As noted, some religions are more equal than others.